Have you ever felt like no matter what you do, you are never enough? Not enough for your family for your job, for yourself, for her health? One of my favorite movies “Mom’s Night Out” has this great scene towards the end where the main character says that she feels like she is just not enough. And one of the other characters responds, not enough for who? The main character Allison then replies not enough for her mom or her husband, for God, for her kids, not enough for anyone. To which her friend replies, “Not enough for you”. This statement is profound. I mean how true is this? We always think we are not enough for others. But this is our opinions of ourselves. The friend then states that we need to stop spending so much time beating ourselves up for what we see as shortcomings and instead, learn that wherever we are in our journey, we are enough.
I love this thought. I mean I know how true this is. I know I am my own worst critic. I have such a hard time accepting compliments and taking credit for what I accomplish. In another one of his talks President Uchtdorf points out that no matter how amazing her food is, his wife always finds something she could have done differently to make it better. I am guilty of this, especially in regards to my diabetes. My overall control is good. I have had my A1C’s in the 6-6.6 range for like 20 years. The only time it was over 7 in my entire adult life was during my divorce but still I see failures every day. I hate seeing an unflattened line on my CMG tracing. I hit 200 almost every day at some point. Rarely do I make it into the 300’s but it happens from time to time. Overall my averages are around 135-140 most of the time but to me this is not good enough. I want perfection, even though I know perfection is unobtainable (see previous posts).
SO how do we let go of drive to be perfect? How do we relax and let ourselves have bad days once in a while without beating ourselves up relentlessly. How can we learn to be imperfect and flawed? How can be let go of the need and wish to be 100 all of the time? How do we learn to be ok where we are, and to give ourselves a break to keep on working hard and take each day as a new beginning to do better then the day before. To go with the ups and downs of both life and our sugars? When will good enough be enough?
I find it so infuriating when someone critiques my diabetes. When friends and or strangers comment
“are you supposed to eat that” or “I though you had diabetes”. It makes me want to smack them and say I can eat whatever I want. I mean in reality we more or less can I know from experience certain types of food don’t sit well with me so I avoid them. I do this only because i do not feel well when i eat them. Chinese food for me is the worst. I have low sugars after eating it then 4 hours later i am like 400. It is so annoying I chose to simply not eat it. As I am getting older, I am noticing other foods I am starting to struggle with. And maybe I will begin to make more changes to my diet. But I don’t need someone to reprimand me for eating what I eat. I have lived with this disease for 33 years people. Please tell me how the one time you saw or read or heard about the diabetic friend or relative has made you the expert on my disease. You know, the one I live with every day, the one I eat, sleep, and breath…
Will we ever feel like our control is good enough? Will we ever accept our broken bodies and being whole and good. Can a person who has Type 1 diabetes ever see them self as being enough? I truly hope that one day my answer to this question will be YES!! One day I will accept my flawed and imperfect self as being good enough for everything!